Tarih Dergisi Turkish Journal of History Tarih Dergisi - Turkish Journal of History, 73 (2021/1): 173-194 DOI: 10.26650/iutd.739895 Research Article / Araştırma Makalesi An Imperial Traveler: Mark Sykes and His Impressions in the Middle East through His Article and Notes in the Late 19th Century Bir İmparatorluk Seyyahı: On Dokuzuncu Yüzyıl Sonlarına Ait Makaleleri ve Notları Işığında Mark Sykes’ın Ortadoğu İzlenimleri Özge Aslanmirza* ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore Mark Sykes’s experiences as a traveler and how they shaped his attitude towards Britain and the Middle East. Renowned for his contribution to the partition of the Ottoman Empire via the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, this study examines his early observations of the Middle East and his relation to the political agenda of Ottoman-British *Ress. Asst., Kocaeli University, Faculty of Arts and relations. Sykes’s private notes and his publications will be compared for Sciences, Department of History, Kocaeli, Turkey differences enabling us to discern how his two texts reveal his Orientalist mindset and early impressions of the Middle East. With reference to archival ORCID: Ö.A. 0000-0001-9664-9880 sources, this study helps us to understand how Sykes’s opinions developed Corresponding author/Sorumlu yazar: and were formative in the political agenda of the Middle East. Özge Aslanmirza, Keywords: Mark Sykes, British-Ottoman relations, Travelling, Orientalism, Kocaeli University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Middle East Department of History, Kocaeli, Turkey E-mail/E-posta:
[email protected] ÖZ Submitted/Başvuru: 19.05.2020 Bu çalışmanın amacı Mark Sykes’ın seyyah olarak deneyimlerini ve bunların Revision Requested/Revizyon Talebi: Britanya ve Ortadoğu’ya yönelik tutumunu nasıl şekillendirdiğini incelemek, 14.11.2020 1916 tarihli Sykes-Picot Antlaşması’yla Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Last Revision Received/Son Revizyon: bölünmesindeki rolüyle bilinen Sykes’ın Ortadoğu’ya dair ilk gözlemlerini ve 02.01.2021 Accepted/Kabul: 03.01.2020 Osmanlı-İngiliz ilişkileriyle bağı ortaya koymaktır.